Tennant bids to save reputation

The phrase "wanted on criminal charges" can hardly have been what Sir Anthony Tennant had in mind as an epitaph after a career spent in some of Britain's most illustrious boardrooms.

Yet last week a grand jury in Manhattan indicted the former chairman of Christie's and his former counterpart at Sotheby's, Mr Alfred Taubman, on charges of conspiring to fix prices in the art auction market.

Sir Anthony refuses to answer the charges. In a letter to friends last week, he wrote: "Why not go to the United States to clear my name? Because I would have to stay there for an unquantifiable length of time - months, possibly years - and pay huge legal bills out of my own resources."

He is convinced he has done nothing wrong. Aged 70, he has neither limitless time nor money to go up against the might of the US legal system. "I prefer to rely on the recognition of my friends that I am innocent of these charges."

It is a pragmatic statement but it is also the classic response of a British gentleman: what matters most is the opinion of one's peers; not a foreign court.

Whether guilty of the charges or not, Sir Anthony hardly matches the identikit profile of a felon. Indeed, his establishment credentials are impeccable. Eton, Trinity College, Cambridge and the Guards were his training grounds. Boardrooms he has sat in include the Wellcome Foundation, Forte, Grand Metropolitan, Guardian Royal Exchange and the London Stock Exchange.

A keen countryman, he shoots and fishes. He is drawn from the wealthy Tennant clan, whose fortune originated when the first Lord Glenconner invented bleaching powder. His wife, Rosemary, is from the Henderson family, which has strong links to the City of London.

Although precise details of the allegations against Sir Anthony are unclear, this is the same man the US Department of Justice believes hatched a collusive plan with Mr Taubman to raise commissions charged to customers selling goods through Christie's and Sotheby's, and to exchange information about customers to enforce that agreement.

Sir Anthony has told friends he believes the charges against him are trumped up in order to keep him out of the US and thus prevent him being a witness for Mr Taubman, whom he believes is the Department of Justice's prime target.

At this stage, it is impossible to know whether Sir Anthony knew of any wrongdoing at Christie's. He was its non-executive chairman from 1993 to 1996 but people who have sat on boards with him say he engages himself thoroughly in whatever he is doing. On the other hand, as a reserved figure and a relative intellectual in a world where who you know is more valued than what you know, Sir Anthony was viewed by some at Christie's as something of an outsider.

Although described by one acquaintance as quintessentially "old school", he was not tempted to rely on his background. Instead, the young Tennant made the unusual choice of going into advertising, a profession that was not considered particularly fashionable at the time. He excelled in his new role, selling the lines "Good food costs less at Sainsbury's" to the supermarket chain and "Schh. . . you know who" to Schweppes, the drinks company.

Yet he built his reputation and profile at Guinness, the drinks group, where he was asked to succeed Mr Ernest Saunders as chief executive in 1987. He brought back stability and credibility to a business battered by the share support scandal that followed the group's bid for Distillers Group.

He became available to Guinness when he lost out to Lord Allen Sheppard in the running to be chief executive of Grand Metropolitan, then a direct competitor of Guinness, although the two companies merged subsequently to form Diageo. As Grand Met's deputy chief executive, Sir Anthony transformed the IDV spirits subsidiary into a leading international liquor company. He introduced a series of new products, including Bailey's Irish Cream and Malibu, which have both grown into global brands, and Le Piat D'Or, the wine that is being relaunched.

Sir Anthony's defeat at the hands of Lord Sheppard creates a misleading impression. Former colleagues and rivals describe him as tough and determined.

Mr Mark Castle, a private detective, caught the sharper end of his tongue last summer when he was serving Sir Anthony with papers in connection with the allegations of price-fixing. Stepping into his car outside the offices of Morgan Stanley, where he was a senior adviser, Sir Anthony is reported to have flung the papers into the gutter shouting "go away".

Four years after stepping down from Guinness in 1992 he was back repairing reputations, this time helping rescue the finances of the Royal Academy. Last week, for the first time in Sir Anthony's life, it was his own reputation that has come under scrutiny.